


Holy Water (Holy Fire)

by The_Readers_Muse



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Established Relationship, Hand Jobs, Healing, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Intimacy, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Religious Guilt, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Romance, Sexual Content, Sexual Identity, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:42:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26773108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Readers_Muse/pseuds/The_Readers_Muse
Summary: He had never stirred for a woman as he did for Yusef.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 12
Kudos: 284





	Holy Water (Holy Fire)

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own "The Old Guard" or any of the show's characters, wishful thinking aside.
> 
> Authors Note #1: My version of what happened 'that time' in Malta. This is meant to fit in post movie, but is mostly a flashback to 'that time' in Malta.
> 
> Warnings: religious references, past internalized homophobia, bed sharing, past references to period typical attitudes on racism, religion, virginity and sexual identity, loss of virginity, hand jobs, religious guilt, romance, drama, angst, healing, bed-sharing, established relationship, intimacy.

He was left with one unavoidable truth as the months turned to years and the lines of his friend's face became more familiar than that of his mother and sisters. He had never stirred for a woman as he did for Yusef.

There was a soft, terrible violence to his want. An embedded sin that shook to his soul whenever Yusef's eyes crinkled and laughed. Cherishing those moments of friendship and trust as the traitor under his skin yearned for something he couldn't name. The discovery of his heart was retribution enough to keep him still. But it didn't last.

He waited for punishment from the divine. For the promised celestial wrath that had been beaten into him as a child. Only it never came. Every day he dared a bit more and every day Yusef smiled at him. God remained silent. In the absence of Church sermons and similar guidance, he realized that perhaps his God had always been that way.

Eventually his prayers became bolder. Taunting. Asking to be struck down if such a love could be wrong. Demanding to know why when it had been the Heavenly Father who had created them both.

His heart was a heretic.

Flawed.

Unclean.

Yet, he breathed.

Years passed and that truth failed to burn him as it once had.

He couldn't remember the day he began to look at the man more freely, but eventually he did. Secreting away every glance. The small things. The unconscious gestures of affection. The honesty of Yusef's hand helping him up when he stumbled. The way they remained together, always. They were all collected - hoarded - for him to enjoy later. As if even now, he feared it wouldn't last.

It was the way of things, after all.

Their mortality might have fled, but that didn't mean Yusef would stay.

Even on good days, it threatened to unman him.

The idea that Yusef was too good to be more than a specter of spring.

The idea that he might be unworthy of it. _Of him._

Yes, especially that.

* * *

But day after day, season after season, year after year, Yusef remained.

* * *

It was in that time that he was forced to admit he was changing. For the first time in his life, he understood that want was stronger and more dangerous than lust. Want remained after lust was quieted. Quenched. His desire for the man was not just physical. Touchable. It was caught underneath his skin. It was a compulsion that reminded him of the need to breathe, drink and eat. It was a yearning of the soul.

Lust was easy to slay.

Want was different.

Stronger.

* * *

It wasn't the first lie that had come from the mouth of the holy pulpit, and it wouldn't be the last. Sin, he realized, was far more complicated than man's tongue could twist around.

Perhaps that was why the Devil oft chose a serpent.

* * *

As he said, he didn't remember the day things changed between them, only the moment. The comfortable pause of everyday life in their shared cottage when he dared to raise his eyes and found Yusef gazing back at him. And unlike so many times before, when he would lower his lashes or huff about needing more wine, neither of them looked away.

It was a sort of madness, perhaps.

But he stood his ground.

Each moment a breathless bruise.

Eventually he sucked in a breath. Breaking the moment like a wave in crest. Cheeks heating at the obvious sound. Silently cursing himself as the oxen outside lowed - demanding breakfast. Yusef just smiled with his eyes and went back to reading.

His cock ached in his breeches.

He fed the oxen, then found quiet corpse of trees and took himself in hand. Trembling and almost knocking knees as he bit his lip and imagined Yusef's hand. The taste of his skin. His lips. He wanted it all. Hs wanted to know him like he already knew the rust of the man's blood on his tongue. The way he smelled. The coarse-soft of his hair. _Dio_. _Dio_. _Dio_. He soaked his hand with spend as he imagined all that and more. Gut clenching as the ghost of Yusef murmuring his name shuddered through him like he might come again.

When he returned to the cottage, Yusef's face was flushed and bright. Making him wonder what the man has been doing to color so as they sat down for a simple meal of bread and cheese.

He could barely look at him.

* * *

It was nearing the end of the growing season when a rare storm moved in. Scouring the countryside with rain and howling wind. Chilling the air unnaturally until they could do nothing but stay inside and tend the fire.

It had been days and Yusef hadn't stopped shivering.

He tried to give the man his blankets – more accustom to colder weather. But Yusef wouldn't have it. So, on the third day, he did what made sense after a half skin of wine. He waited until the man had fallen into a fitful sleep and slipped in beside him. Combining their blankets and warming him that way as the dredges of sour wine coated the inside of his mouth, making him bold.

His hand hovered at the man's hip. Close, but not daring to touch.

It would be a step too far, surely.

His fingers twitched in the frigid air. Claw-like in the absence of something to hold.

Yusef sighed when he settled behind him. Exhaling slowly as shivering muscles grudgingly unclenched. Something in him warming – pleased – when for the first time in days, Yusef slept. And perhaps it was the peace on his face that made it easy to follow.

He would hear later in town that the storm had gotten worse that night. But to his shame, he barely noticed. Considering that sometime during those hours, he'd stirred awake to find Yusef looking at him in the dark. Cocks brushing through their clothes. Moving against each other with the slow roll of hips and thighs. Every animal touch sleepy, but far from innocent. He froze in place. Confused. Hungry. Mortified. He didn't remember having moved. How they'd suddenly come face to face when he'd settled along the man's back hours before.

He didn't breathe. He couldn't. Yusef, however, was almost panting. Exhaling a warmth he could feel as fingers twitched in the space between them. Not daring to go that final step alone.

Eternity existed here, caught between what they were and what they could be.

He'd never wanted to fall more.

He understood the reason for those looks now. Unpracticed as he was, he was no fool. And while he'd pretend later this had only happened because of the wine and the storm, he could feel it - that spark. The thing that had driven him into the woods that day. Spilling into the same fist that had touched Yusef innocently a hundred times. The thing that had been leading them _here_ , one step at a time until-

A wordless sound left him as he lanced forward. Pressing a messy kiss into the corner of Yusef's mouth. Shaking with nerves and need as Yusef sucked in a shattered breath. Nearly shaming himself when a hand grazed his stomach. He choked on a hiccup, cock hard against the seam of his pants. He was too sensitive for his body to interpret the touch any other way.

He moaned, hating the sound, when Yusef kissed him back. A mess of tentative hands as he traced the line of his face, his cheek, cupping his chin. Smudging calloused fingers against his lower lip until he uncovered a brand new sin. Refusing to let him look away as he stared into Yusef's eyes and found only warmth there.

You wouldn't know he was unspoiled. Unpoisoned by the carnal acts he'd given an oath to save for the marriage bed. And yet now he burned. Wanting more. Wanting to learn. He had never felt more alive. More terrified. More-

A childish shock he shouldn't have been equal to rippled through him when Yusef moved closer. Turning the kiss deeper – with teeth and tongue he didn't know how to navigate as the blood under his skin sparked. But he wanted everything the man could give him. Returning it with eager grace Yusef somehow guided into pleasure. Realizing only when the man groaned that he'd pulled him in by the neck. Keeping him as their kisses turned sharp. Finding himself ruined at the rasp of stubble burning against his cheek. Every inch of him one fire as he murmured pleads into the hollow of his throat.

Yusef was relentless, pulling sounds out of him as hips hitched against his. They flattened their sleep mats, rolling together as the storm raged outside. Tangled so close he could taste the scent of the man's skin. The woody burr of ittar. His sleep sweat. The oil he used on his leathers. The wine they'd drank. Sandalwood. Salt. Saffron. Cloves.

_Him._

_Just him_.

He gasped when Yusef's hand dipped low, cupping him through his sleep pants. The material was so worn it was as if he'd touched his cock directly. He nearly thrashed. Unprepared for the pleasure of it. The unsteady way Yusef was breathing. How it felt so different from-

"Let me. Yes? Please, Nicolo...let me?"

He nodded, frantic. Eyes open but somehow blind as warmth blossomed low in his belly. Trusting Yusef to take him there. Giving permission like last rites to all his old vows as Yusef tugged at their trousers. Baring them to the air. He looked down. Biting his lip as their cocks brushed – crowns wet and slipping. Hips stuttering and head falling back as Yusef closed his fist around them.

_Cristo!_

He writhed. Anchored to Yusef as he twitched through the straw underneath them. Barely having the presence of mind to wrap his hand around Yusef's as it started to move. Jacking them off with a slow, stripling rhythm that corded bliss through the tension in his jaw.

It was never a question of making it last. Still, he was surprised when he peaked so quickly. Discovering a new sort of violence as he soared higher, faster than he was prepared for. Feeling like it was being pulled from him as their lips missed each other. Rocking into it as the jut of hipbones knocked against his. He panted into Yusef's mouth, moving and urgent. Bare toes curling as he kissed down his neck, caught in an unstoppable surge of pleasure.

Yes.

_This._

"You've been worth waiting for, Nico," Yusef hummed, half slurred with want. Proving to be his undoing as he gasped into the next roll of thunder. Back arcing off the floor the same moment his eyes slammed tightly closed. Hiding from the world. Hiding from his God. Hiding from Yusef. From himself. From the worn stone cottage they'd called home for years. All of it.

He spilled with a cry like a hymn, trembling into Yusef's chest. Coming down from a height he'd never reached on his own as the man's beard rasped against his throat. Wetting their fists as he jerked, then sighed. Feeling Yusef tumble after as warmth of another kind settled under his skin. More enduring than the storm or any that would come after.

He hadn't felt so alive since the first time he'd died.

That was what Yusef had given him.

* * *

Regret didn't come later, as he was expecting. It wouldn't do to be so simple.

But that didn't mean he was cured of a lifetime of stalwart faith and all it's pitfalls either.

Far from it, in fact.

* * *

"I was so angry then," he murmured, tracing his lips across Joe's ribs as they lounged on the bed. Lost in its size and tangled hopelessly in sheets. Remembering that first time and all the complicated joys that had come after.

He hadn't been the same person who'd come to the Holy Land all those years ago. Burning bright with the purity of God's righteous flame. But he wasn't himself - as he was now - either. It had still been dark inside the wolf who'd consumed him. And to his shame, that same darkness had hurt Yusef in those early days.

"Hatred burns bright when you don't know the person who stokes it. Especially if it's yourself," Joe replied, generous as always. Not bothering to ask for context. It was always the same. Joe knew where his mind went when they came to the islands. "You didn't know yourself then, my love."

It was a familiar conversation. Comfortably broken-in despite the lingering guilt he still carried. Often he would try and goad him into stronger words, but this time he didn't. He felt distant from it in the wake of Merrick's scheme and Booker's betrayal. Neither of them needed the weight.

They'd come to Malta to heal.

It was the gift this place never stopped giving them.

No matter how the landscape changed, they could always find peace here.

He smiled into the sheets as he turned to face him. Expression warm and poetically feral when Joe met him there. Just like he always did. Eyes on his lips like he intended to kiss the next words directly from them.

"But you waited," he hummed, leaning into the kiss when Joe made good on his promise and scraped teeth across his lower lip. Fattening the middle plush as his cock stirred against his thigh. Interested. Greedy. And considering they hadn't been out of bed in hours, particularly ambitious.

"Forever," Joe promised, cupping his chin and whispering the last bit just for him. Thrilling him much like the first time he'd spoken to him in his mother tongue. "Per sempre."

He smiled again, the breeze from the ocean tickling goose-flesh as Joe hitched a leg over his. Holding him fiercely. Softly. Thinking back to that small cottage and the first time they'd held each other this way.

Many things change.

But some things don't.

_Grazie Dio._

**Author's Note:**

> Reference:
> 
> \- Dio: God.
> 
> \- Ittar: also known as attar, is an essential oil derived from botanical sources. The oils are generally distilled into a wood base such as sandalwood and then aged.
> 
> \- Cristo: Christ.
> 
> \- Per sempre: forever.
> 
> \- Grazie Dio: thank god.


End file.
